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I'm ok with them slowing down the pace of new GPUs. I typically waited two generations before upgrading anyways, so as long as the performance increase of the next high end part is high, I'll be in the mood to upgrade again after only one generation so it doesn't' really impact me much. Plus, my old part will probably be worth more on the used market too.Reply

Very true, but as we've seen with Intel and Nvidia, greater transistor and TDP budget from improved process nodes does not mean they will release a maxed out part that significantly outperforms the previous generation.

Nvidia held BigK back for whatever reasons.

Intel is using it's increased transistor budget on GPU rather than CPU.

I'm generally OK with the slowed pace of product launches, I just hope people get wise to the fact they don't have to upgrade if the increase in performance doesn't warrant the price tag.Reply

I think that people are generally wise to this, and that part of the reason to hold off is that all a new generation would do at this point is to drive prices down, making even lower end parts enough for the majority of situations. It probably makes some sense to wait until the new consoles are released, and hope that games for them might drive an upgrade cycle on the PC.Reply

Same here, I wanted the 8xxx to come out so I can sell my 6870 xfire. It's running great for me but I like to run my games on max settings and the 1gb ram is showing it's age in titles with heavy AA like BF3. I prefer a single gpu from now. Reply

We need PC gaming to become alittle (not much) more mainstream so we can get dev support.

Slower product cycles are more encouraging to developers and consumers.

We don't need 2 high end GPU's every year when software doesn't effectively use it. Lets face it, the only way to bring a current high end GPU to its knee's is by forcing graphic effects that have a minimal visual effect. Surely they could do something more effective with that rendering time; and they would if it wasn't for games are console ports and its quick and easy to add said effects.

If we can unify XBMC (hulu, youtube, netflix) and Steam (games) with an easy to use interface for the TV we are well on our way. Also with Linux support from both; well I'm pretty excited and nervous for the prospects.

I just hope steam does something for multi users, no one is going buy 4 copies of a game for use on the TV. They need multiple users per steam account if they want it to succeed.Reply

Steam's console-esque hardware isn't going to improve the situation for PC gaming. If anything it will steal away PC gamers who aren't very dedicated to the PC, and only used it to play PC-exclusive titles because there's no alternative. How can PC gaming become mainstream when you're driving users AWAY from a full PC and into a Steam Box, with fixed hardware specs that are well below a high end PC?

If the Steam Box really takes off and they sell several million units, it will have the same effect on software development as any other mainstream console. Developers will target the big market, and the full-on PC version will seem hamstrung in a couple of years. The mainstream hardware is at the core of the issue you're talking about, and Steam Box is little different from the MS/Sony units in this regard.

The reality is that the Steam Box is just a way for Gabe to make sure he gets a cut of the profit from living room gaming too. He's pissed at MS for getting a cut from the Windows store, but Valve is no better. They're a for-profit company too.Reply

I don't think you have a clue about steambox, since no one does. Not sure why you think steambox would have the same effect as console gaming. You're kinda just making the facts up honestly. You say the steambox is fixed spec'ed, do you have any proof. The steambox is just a PC with steam. Its more about the software then the hardware.

I mean we haven't even seen the finished product yet and you have already made up your mind, with some HUGE assumptions and very questionable premises. If steambox did well it could also lead to more demand for PC upgrades.

Plus, like I said. Gaming for Linux, on the big screen TV combined with XBMC. I love the thought of that. If devs decide not to take up Linux I can still use windows 7, XBMC, and steam. That's what I love about PCs, CHOICE. That's what sucks about consoles, no choice!

But this notion that it could actually hurt PC gaming, beyond what consoles already have... I just don't understand that.Reply

Valve encourages other vendors to build Steamboxes, with varying configurations, that's true. But I think others, like Alienware, would be tempted to stay close to Valve's config to maximize compatibilty and ease of production, since they could just copy the Valve's software stack including drivers.

So there's the danger of a single Steambox config prevailing. That would tempt devs to start actively targeting that config. Indies would be first to state: PC compatible, but tested on Steambox only.If successful, after a while other configs could become increasingly buggy and PC builders (OEM or do-it-yourself) would be wise to adhere to the Steambox config too, especially on the GPU side.

Should Valves choose nVidia for their GPU, this could poison the gaming retail market for AMD, triggering them to just focus on the consoles they're in. And without a competitor, nVidia becomes lazy and just designs to Valve's desire.

We could end up in a situation where the Steambox is just a console you can buy from different vendors. It would still be preferrable to PS4s and Xbox whatevers, but the open spirit of the PC - that is currently under siege on other fronts - would take another hit.Reply

Perhaps AMD is realizing that it can leverage increased margins if it does not need to retool every year and can introduce incremental updates rather than new architectures. However, the timeline outlined here makes me wonder if AMD is not delaying the launch to coincide with the next XBOX launch.

Yes, I have read the rumors that the next XBOX features a 6670 or variant, but when the XBOX 360 launched, it featured a GPU that AMD had not yet released (something like a 2900 equivalent if memory serves me correctly?). Perhaps Microsoft is using the next microcode and has made some deal to have exclusive launch with it for 30 days. That would coincide with the next desktop GPU launches based on what I have seen.

AMD is having cash flow issues, so this may be an opportunity seen to defer capital expenditures, too. Maybe they are also hoping people will not sit on the sideline for the next upgrade cycle like I have, giving incentive to purchase today.

Knowing the past history on the AMD development cycles, they could just be way behind.Reply

Those rumours are old. All the latest information points to Xbox 720 using a 12 compute unit GPU with 768 SPs, 1.23Tflops, with performance similar to that of an HD7770. On the PS4 side the same sources are hinting at an 18 computer unit GPU with 1152 SPs, 1.84Tflops, with performance approximating that of an HD7850.Reply

HD7770-like. I would not be surprised, though, if Microsoft wanted to go with a smaller geometry or additional stepping to save further on power and reduce heat loads. That would help to avoid the solder and heat issues that plagued the first generation of the 360.Reply

To translate this into english AMD is saying they don't have the resources to stay on a 1 year cycle even if Nvidia has 2/3 of the market now (real numbers not assumptions).The big question is if the 8xxx series is on 28nm or 20nm. My guess is 20nm at GloFo since when they signed the latest WSA that expires at the end of the year they said some GPUs will be at GloFo . Could be GloFo 28nm, i guess, but that would be less fun for us.Now lets see if Nvidia goes after share gains and has a new gen soon or they take it easy too.

You mention that laptops are growing and desktops are declining and that's not all that true anymore. Both are declining and laptops might decline at a faster pace. Don't have numbers for machines with discrete GPUs ,that particular segment could be different so do share if you do have any actual numbers.And since i know someone will have to argue that PC sales are not that bad , just this week Gartner released sales numbers for Q4 in western Europe and ... "In the fourth quarter of 2012, all PC segments in Western Europe declined. Mobile and desktop PC shipments declined 12.1 percent and 10.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012, respectively. The decrease in the professional PC market was less severe due to replacement purchases and fell 4.9 percent, while the consumer PC market declined 17.6 percent year-on-year. "- that decline in consumer is huge and far beyond what the economic troubles would cause and it's serious trouble.Reply

Before you know it someone will declare a worldwide economic recession... Q4 in the U.S. was the worst in years. ABout that "recovery" that Bama and the clowns in DC keep spouting off about. Maybe they mean their expense accounts are increasing but not the U.S. economy improving?Reply

AMD had announced over a year ago that there would be a 7790 desktop video card that would be the least powerful card that still had a 256-bit memory interface. Maybe that's what the phrase "AMD will be introducing new retail desktop 7000 series products in the first half of 2013" is referencing?.Reply

Meanwhile NVIDIA will launch Titan which will be easy enough to scale back in to mid range chips placing the 7970 into the "entry level" category. I think this road map from AMD is a white flag. They know they can no longer compete at the high end, so they simply won't. Reply

Well this is shitty news. I don't care about any of the business related stuff, this just makes things far less interesting with desktop GPU's and anyone who's an enthusiast.

I hope NV don't follow, although they probably will. I atleast want to see bigger performance increases AND many more new feature with new high-end GPU's if they wont be coming out as often. Sad to see this happening though, it's always fun when a new beefy GPU comes out.Reply

1. No desktop HD8000 brand cards in 20132. HD7000 on desktop will get new cards based on the Sea Island arch.3. Sea Island's fastest chip < Tahiti4, Which means the fastest consumer desktop GPU will be HD7970 in 2013.Reply

Are you mentally handicapped? Nvidia is far and away the worst. Point in case: GT 555m. The GT 555m has two completely different shader configurations. And look at their "SE" edition desktop cards.Reply

It seems Sea Islands is going to be an old-school refresh of a tried and true GPU, similar to Nvidia's old (and somewhat abandoned) cadence with some of their older GPUs (G70>G71, G80>G92) where they do more than just shrink dies or improve processes, they also tweak functional units. I guess AMD did similar with their R300 > R350 and Cypress > NI refreshes.

Its looking more like 2013 will be the year of refreshes with Sea Islands = refreshed Southern Islands. As expected, Nvidia will most likely launch GF Titan (GK110) as their new flagship along with a refreshed lineup of GK114, GK116, GK118 based Kepler2 parts to counter. Titan should have little problem taking the top-end single GPU title, GTX 690 (or 790 refreshed version) will probably have to go up against a 2xOland 7990 for top-end dual-GPU.

This news should make anyone who bought a new GPU based on SI or Kepler pretty happy to know their GPUs won't be made obsolete by anything released this year, this side of Titan anyways.

I was most impressed by this tidbit in the article though:

"almost unbelievably having sold more 7900 cards in January 2013 than in any month prior "

Just goes to show all the pundits who poo-poo'd Nvidia's logo program in the past had no clue what they were talking about. It was always obvious that strong game bundles sold video cards and now it seems AMD is beating Nvidia at it's own game. Step it up Nvidia, you're falling behind with that F2P garbage bundle you just released....Reply

i as someone who bought the MSI 7970 HD Lightning for £400, just after the price cut and three game bundle were introduced, i cannot say i am unhappy that my investment will remain current for so long.Reply

Confirmed, they won't be creating a new GPU more powerful that Tahiti/7970. The last two generations, AMD had problems because they introduced new (higher) numbers but the performance did not improve, it was an existing architecture basically optimized for power draw. Because 6 to 7 was an architecture change, there was a performance boost. For the first time though, 7 to 8 won't happen because the 8 parts are being optimized for power draw and actually will also be BELOW the performance of the prior gen chips. That is significant.

AMD have decided to place their resources with integration better graphics cores into their APU (CPU/GPU). This is where they have decided to focus, and it makes sense for the laptop and desktop markets. I'll predict the following: the distinction between these parts will disappear after this year. The second key point is that AMD are clearly not planning a shrink from 28 to 20nm this year.

I think AMD are also doing something else. That is, waiting to see if the desktop market effectively disappears this year. The only people buying these are enthusiasts. If that market continues to shrink, I think we may be on the cusp of a really big divide. That is, there will not be a discrete graphics market. Once they are able to integrate a current-generation GPU and CPU on one component, it's game over for discrete. In the past, we've been used to keeping a CPU and just upgrading the GPU once or twice per CPU generation, and as many here have alluded to, they were slowing down their GPU upgrades to every other generation anyway. Those generations are going to be cycled together in future. AMD give the game away with their 'System Integration' step.

Which brings the final point. Their first System Integration offerings will in fact be the next gen XBox and PS4. Those run with unified memory architecture because that's what concoles have always done. Both are going to be based on these (admittedly custom) APUs. AMD will be diverting all possible resources this year to support those launches before the holidays.

So this is why there is no work on a new discrete GPU high-end offering this year. AMD need to put all their (limited) resources behind the merging of APU for both traditional personal computers (desktop/laptop) and consoles. Folks, the 7970 may be the last ever high end discrete GPU; or there may be one more generation on GCN2. Discrete GPUs are done.Reply

The only people buying these are enthusiasts. If that market continues to shrink, I think we may be on the cusp of a really big divide. That is, there will not be a discrete graphics market.

What?

-- Graphics add-in board shipments seasonally up from last quarter-- Seasonal uplift, led by Nvidia, is almost 2x 10-year average. Normally, this quarter of the year is up, and this year the quarter was no different, with an increase greater than the 10-year average (10.6%).-- Total AIB shipments increase this quarter from the previous quarter by 18.8% to 17.5 million units (see Table 1).-- Nvidia continues to hold a dominant market share position at 64%; however, in Q2’12 AMD shipped 5.95 million units, and in Q3’12 shipped 6.26, so they increased in shipments but Nvidia shipped more and therefore grew market share ending up with 11.23 million, up 28% from 8.75 million last quarter (see Figure 5).-- Year to year this quarter AIB shipments were up 1.7% from 17.2 million to 17.5 million units.-- Just over 87.6 million PCs shipped worldwide in the quarter, an increase of 0.6% compared to the previous quarter (based on an average of reports from Dataquest, IDC, and HSI).

Year-to-year for the quarter the market increased 1.7%. Shipments increase to 17.5 million units, up 0.3 million units from this quarter last year. The desktop AIB segments decreased in the low end, which JPR thinks is to be expected as embedded graphics processors satisfy the requirements of a market with no new or interesting applications or games—as long as Moore’s Law is working and the software developers are complacent, the embedded processors will do well.

So what this says is, the low end is dying out because there are embedded GPUs in the low end machines. This is only going to accelerate, since they are now able to make their way much further up the capability curve than they did a year or so ago. Sales now are to augment those machines bought 1, 2 or 3 years ago. And that was up 1.7% only year-on-year. As these new machines being sold today with APUs become more of the market, they won't have AIB originally and likely nor will they be upgraded. That architecture lends itself to complete replacement, not upgrades.

This last year also saw a big increase in workstation graphics sales in Q3 and Q4. This is not retail gaming for consumers, but businesses.Reply

What I could see AMD do: start at Pitcairn and scale it up, approximately to Tahiti-level performance, but leave out the compute enhancements (FP64 at 1/4th FP32 probably being the biggest one). I suspect this should drive its die size and cost closer to GK104, while sustaining the bandwidth advantage. The current 7900 series cards could be replaced or supplanted by this chip, so 7900 would still be the fastest. Continue to sell Tahiti for compute / workstation etc. markets.Reply

Well guess there isn't much sense to waiting for the 8000 series for desktop. Might as well pull the trigger on a 7950. Been looking at the Gigabyte windforce for $289.99. What you guys think. I game at 1080p and have an Core i5 750 based system.Reply

Older hardware will play a lot of Steam games, PC gaming is REVIVING? Why buy an XBox 720 or PS4 when you can play hundreds of great games on a cheap PC and have more control or the same controller as a console? I think we're going to see the PC reborn, Linux style. Ubuntu is so easy to download, install, and update now.Reply

As an entousiast since my first 486-66Mhz, today it's the first time I can honestly say i can buy a 1000$-1500$ machine and it will last more than 2 years. If you bought a Sandy Bridge last year you've got no reason to upgrade to Ivy Bridge (performance Wise) and chances are Haswell won't give you that much more horsepower either (only less power draw, which i can care less).

In fact i've been runing on my Phenom II X-3 since 2008 and the CPU still does the job. I've been uprading my GPU yearly though, skipped this year since my AMD 6870 still does the job.

Point is i'm looking for an Ivy bridge i7 upgrade with may be a GTX 660ti or GTX 670 and it will take a few years before i see new software able to throw this new rig to its knees.

Hell i got a Surface pro, and plugged to my 24'' monitor with a Bluetooth keybord+mouse combo it does everything i need for light office work (except heavy excel modeling, even there it's manageable).My new rig is only gonna be for gaming, and since it will be as powerful as this year's new console and that the gaming industry is moving toward cheap-ass ugly 16-bits area free to play games, i'm just gonna be fince for a while. At last i can spend my money elsewhere.Reply

I hope Rory Read doesn't bankrupt AMD. GPU business was the only bright spot in AMD's earnings. But it seems AMD is focusing entirely on consoles and alienating enthusiasts with this new road map. AMD can be comfortable with 7xxx ONLY until nvidia launches the AMD crusher GeForce Titan. If GeForce Titan is really as powerful as they claim to be, then it might take 2 or more generations to catch-up with nVidia AGAIN. nVidia purely being a GPU company diversified with Tegra SoC already. But AMD being an active CPU company doesn't seem to have a mobile (as in phone / tablet) strategy. Hope the new APUs will do well at low power.Reply

Well the Titan will cost more than douple compared to 7970, so Titan is not a problem to AMD at all!When Nvidia really release something new in price sector 100$ to 500$ they should be ready to release something new on their own. Untill then there is allmost zero reason to release anything new. Also if they are upgrading their low and middle range cards, they are just fine even above Nvidia in those segments.The most sensible product would be updated 7870 product that would be near 680 in pure gaming situation, but below 7970 in everything else. Make it cheap enough, and Nvidia has to think about new products and /or price reduction, but so far there has not been anything like that announced.Reply

This makes good sense, they can continue with the success of the 7xxx series, add new boards to fill market gaps, all the while getting the 8xxx series where they want/need it. How angry would we be if the 8xxx series were just a refresh with minimal performance gains?

My theory is that they are working to fix the 7xxxx series weak point and finding performance increases while doing it. By weak point I'm referring to the higher power usage when compared to Kepler. I would think that a change like that would require a good amount of arch reworking. However, at the same time lowering the power draw would likely allow additional performance headroom. Basically, I don't think the 8xxx series will be just a refresh. But, this is just a theory.

Executed properly, this should put AMD in a good position. I would be surprised if nVidia were to release any major performance increases with a 7xx series if released this year.

I really doubt nVidia's Titan will be much of an issue. While it will take the single GPU performance crown, the price/performance is lacking. The 680 / 7970 Ghz already push the price/performance ratio beyond what many think is acceptable.Reply